Who are the highest-earning esports players?

Features -
11 Jan 2017

From David Beckham to Muhammad Ali, the world
of traditional sports has given us countless sporting superstars. But now
esports is getting its own household names - we list some of the
highest-earning players in esports...

Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok (League of
Legends)

Estimated earnings:
$890,000+

Faker
began playing LoL in December 2011, when the Korean server opened. He started playing
professionally in February 2013 when he joined SK Telekom. He is unarguably the
best player ever in League of Legends (some fans even refer to him as ‘God’).

He's achieved 24 top three finishes including three
world championship titles, was the most valuable player (MVP) at the 2016 World
Championship, and is rumoured to have a contract valued at $2.5m.

Saahil ‘UNiVeRsE’ Arora (Dota 2)

Estimated earnings:
$2.6m+

UNiVeRsE has a whopping 33 top
three finishes under his belt, including winning The International 2015, where
he was named MVP.

UNiVeRsE is famously known for
his '6 million dollar Echo Slam' - an in-game ability that helped his team win
The International 2015 final.

Robin ‘flusha’ Rönnquist (CSGO)

Estimated earnings:
$388,000+

Flusha began playing competitive
CSGO in September 2012 and played for Fnatic for three years, winning an
impressive number of tournaments. He has 52 top three finishes and was voted
the second best player of 2015.

Jang ‘MC’ Min Chul (StarCraft II)

Estimated earnings:
$500,000+

MC was nicknamed ‘boss-toss’ for
being one of the best Protoss players in the world. He had most of his success
with Old Generations up until 2012 where he accumulated more than $355,500. He
retired in June 2015 with two global titles.

Pavel ‘Pavel’ Beltukov (Hearthstone)

Estimated earnings: $273,000+

In 2015, Pavel attended three
tournaments where he competed at the highest level but only made top three,
once. Heading into 2016, Pavel won the Hearthstone Champions League but placed poorly at the next three events
until the world championship, which he went on to win with Millenium.